Voices
by NineBlackOrchids
Summary: Seto has been hearing voices in his head for a while and when visions start coming as well he starts searches for answers. Something bigger is going on, though, and he'll need help if he wants to get to the bottom of it all.
1. Prologue

Basically, this is my first story so please read and review. I love it when people critique my work, but no flames!!!

**Summary: Seto has been hearing voices in his head for a while and when visions start coming as well he searches for answers. Something bigger is going on, though, and he'll need help if he wants to get to the bottom of it all.**

The rating is just to be safe. Maybe a bit of Azureshipping later on, but don't count on it. Sorry if the prologue seems short but I plan to update as sonn as each chapter is finished. R&R!

Prologue

"Mommy, where are you?"

"Wonder where the lights are..."

"Here I am! I'm down here!"

The first voice is from a small child, I'm guessing a toddler, calling out in a frightened voice for its mother. The second is an older man thinking aloud to himself. The third, a middle aged woman trying to make herself heard. What do these people have in common? Absolutely nothing, except I can hear their voices ringing in my head.

Not that I really want to. I, Seto Kaiba, would love nothing more than to not hear these voices but it seems that I have no choice but to listen. It all started a few years ago, after that pointless trip to Egypt with the geek squad.

The same night that Mokuba and I returned to the mansion there was a terrible storm. Raging winds, torrents of rain, and rumbling thunder. After coaxing a terrified Mokuba to sleep I had wandered in the library, which is on the ground floor. I was standing right in front of the window when it happened. There is an enormous birch tree by the window and with an almighty crack one of the largest branches snapped off and came crashing through the window. I managed to jump out of the way in time but something hit my head and I blacked out.

Mokuba woke me up later, maybe an hour later, and he looked like he'd just seen the reaper. Someone had laid me across a sofa in the living room and all of the covered stacks around me indicated that the maids had saved most of the books. Well, the next bit of the story is pretty uneventful. Had a killer headache for a little while, all of the damages were repaired, and life went on. No changes for a week or two, and that's when the voices started.

They began gradually, in both volume and frequency (N#1). Soon enough it was impossible to concentrate on almost anything in the rush of babbling. There was no way that I would see a doctor and stoke up rumors so I told no one and have kept it that way ever since.. Over time I learned how to block out all of the voices but those in English and Japanese. It was quite an accomplishment, but very far from completely silencing the voices for good.

I'm able to bear listening now. Barely. I almost think that I've changed a bit over time. Never one for patience, and now I can stand even the mutt and Yugi. Sometimes I wonder why I only hear some people and not others. Am I only listening to certain people or is there something else going on? I might never know, but I have a bad feeling deep in the pit of my stomach….

N#1- In case anyone is wondering, I mean frequency as in happening often.


	2. Chapter 1

**Allrighty, Chapter #1 up! I just finished typing it all and I couldn't wait to put it up. This one is considerably longer than the last so enjoy. Read, review, and comment! The story picks up from here on. **

**And seeing as I forgot to add this in my opening rant last time, in case you haven't noticed, this is all in Seto's POV.**

Chapter #1

_'How on earth can I be so far behind?'_ All week I'd done nothing but work, and yet every time things seemed to be running smoothly at last, something just had to go wrong. I hate incompetence, but this is ridiculous! Maybe Mokuba was right and I needed a vacation. A few days without work would probably do me good as much as I hated to admit it.

"Hey big brother!" Speaking of Mokuba…

I looked up from my computer screen and allowed a small smile to cross my features. "I didn't hear you come in. That door always squeaks when it's opened."

He shrugged and crossed the room to stand beside where I sat in my desk chair. I ruffled his unruly hair as I leaned back and sighed softly. Mokuba caught the noise and his large eyes lit with concern. "Are you all right? Lately you look really tired. I'm getting worried."

"Don't be," I said with a wave of my hand, "There's just been a little extra work I've had to take care of. I'm fine." He didn't look at all sure. "Honest. So, any plans for today?"

Well, that perked him up. "I'm going to the arcade with Yugi and the others. Then maybe we'll stop for a bite to eat. You should come with us!" He was hopeful, but for nothing. I could stand the group now, my patience had improved greatly, but I was not going to act like we were anywhere close to being friends.

"Maybe another time kid. Sorry," I quickly added for the sake of his feelings.

"I understand." Mokuba gave me a quick hug. "Don't work yourself to death like I know you might," he said dryly as he left my office. I shook my head and went back to work. _'That kid has a strange way of making me feel bad about my work habits.'_

When I left the office that evening it was earlier than I would have. I felt that I owed Mokuba some time together. I nodded to my surprised secretary and stepped into the elevator in silence. The doors clanged shut and the elevator jarred into motion. I closed my eyes. I had a good many floors to pass and I let 'my' voices wash over me.

A few cries of 'Where am I', maybe half a dozen others crying their heads off, and the usual. I opened my eyes again and sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time today. Leaning against the wall, I felt suddenly dizzy. A powerful throbbing in the back of my head had just started and I felt peculiar…

"What are you doing? Stop- No!"

A voice so much stronger that the others! A woman too, crying and screaming. Violently shaking my head, I attempted to block it out. The voce faded, thank god, but something else happened. My vision flashed onto a different scene than the elevator doors. I hate the word, but it was the only one for it, a vision.

There was a forlorn house with no lights on. A flash and a scene change. A living room with rickety furniture and a woman sprawled on the ground. Flash. I saw the woman close up. Her eyes were staring ahead in blank terror. She wasn't breathing any longer, but I just knew it was her voice that I had heard. And then- I was staring at the blank doors again.

Panting, I raised a trembling hand to run through my hair. It wasn't real. I've just spent too much time in a dark office, listening to disembodied voices. Nothing to panic about. Just my imagination running wild. I smirked to myself. Yes, just my imagination and if the mutt heard me say that he'd have a heart attack. When the elevator finally stopped I walked out with most of wits about me. I remained calm the rest of the night and by morning the vision didn't even faze me any longer. I had other problems to worry about anyway.


	3. Chapter 2

I'm finally updating! It took me a while, but it's up here now. Story begins moving now that I caught these 'introductory' chapters up. The first chapters are the hardest for me to write and now that they are up I can continue with relative peace. And one last thing..jingles collections box Reviews?

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**Chapter #2**

'Visions' are something I've always hated. From the time Isis Ishtar 'took me back to roots' and last night's little episode I have learned two things about these hallucinations. 1) You can hardly concentrate on a thing afterwards and 2) It leaves you feeling drained the next morning.

Today for instance. In the wake of a very abnormal headache I took a day off. Normally I hate slacking off on my work but last night had left me drained. It was Monday, so Mokuba was at school, which meant that I had no one hanging on to my shoulder asking how I felt. The maids know to keep their distance in order to keep their jobs. Something that was drilled into their heads during the job interview.

I was sitting in my home study, staring out the window in a strange moment of peacefulness. Mokuba wouldn't be home for several hours and I felt bored out of my mind for maybe the first time in years. However much I wanted to do something, though, I knew that vision would keep me from concentrating. And so I sat there. Almost going out of my mind with the silence and absence of movement. Over time I got to wondering exactly what I'd seen last night. Murder or just a delusional day dream? Maybe not a day dream. I grew out of those when I was adopted by Gozaburo. In the end curiosity won out, and ignoring the screams of several defiant and clearly unhappy to be dead teenagers from some car accident somewhere, I swiveled around to my computer.

My first search was cursory, through databases of several local newspapers. Nothing on murder or accidental deaths in the city anywhere. I decided that if the papers didn't manage to get anything the police wouldn't have found anything. The press pulls strings until they have at least part of the story. The rest they just make up without a second thought.

On an impulse I searched through several other databases, this time outside of the city. I searched for maybe an hour and a half, searching farther and farther away, and was just about to give up when I found it. Small newspaper for an even smaller town, roughly 60 miles from the outskirts of Domino's closest neighboring city. The article was front page news. The article read:

_Last night, at roughly 5:30 pm, long time resident Sakura Dace, age 36, was found dead in the heritage city hall of Tellar. The mother of four was found around 9:00 pm by authorities when she failed to return home for dinner. "Foul play is the cause of her death", say authorities. She was found with a knife wound in her back and a look on her face of pure terror. No one is yet sure who killed her and why, but her death is the most recent in a line of killings making a steady trail across the country. The killer is yet to be apprehended for the murders of fourteen other residents of various towns. Authorities say they are doing all they can to find this heartless killer, now dubbed 'Heart-Breaker', because each of his victims had a family and group of close friends to leave behind. Mrs. Dace's widowed husband is…_

And so forth. I sat back in my chair, completely bewildered, and let my mind digest this information. The woman in the photo above the article was the woman in my vision all right. She was smiling too, and I could hardly believe that the caption said that the photo had been taking exactly one week before her death. Her look of terror would haunt me forever now. Something else I couldn't believe was that this killer had fourteen other victims. _Fourteen! _Why would I start seeing a death now when I could just as easily have heard the voices?

I rubbed my temples and shook my head. I was being crazy. I doubted that this vision meant anything. Same as with my voices, I wouldn't hear the same person twice. With the killer, I couldn't possibly see one of his victims again. But still… I started looking into the other murders right away. No way would the rest of my day be quiet. I wassearching for something to reassure me of no connections, but in the pit of my stomach I had a really bad feeling about all of this.


End file.
